I have a lot of respect or truck drivers. My BIL was one for many years. I always kind of envisioned putting railroad wheels on them though. Just like the guys that take care of the railways. Then they could just jump on the rails, sit back and relax, and jump off again 500 miles later. Best of both worlds. Might have to convert all the bike trails back to railroads again though. 
If the railroads here were run as efficiently as they are in Europe, we would not have a long haul trucking industry. Today a two man train crew can move 300 truckloads of freight on trailers ready to roll off already loaded. They can move 500 truckloads in rail cars.
Just look at the difference between an F15 and a Raptor UAV. No humans, no need for anything related to them. The truck part will be a windowless cab, designed with aerodynamics being the biggest concernā¦
This is exactly why protectionist bubbles do not work in a modern world. If you do not adapt and change, you dieā¦
1 Like
my speculation on what the trucks will be like and if they will be designed to be operated by a driver are based on what the trucking and related industries are like now. So far, the driverless trucks are designed to operate long distance only. Ltl freight companies will still have to have docks and dock workers and city pickup and delivery drivers. In the truckload business a single owner operator could benefit by the technology to drive long distances for him while he sleeps or even relaxes but lets him operate in the city and interact with the customers and load and unload as needed. He or she would need a truck that looks just like they do now. Walmart could go straight to the no cab model that just took the trailers to their distribution centers. They already have yard drivers with yard tractors there.
Was it not the truckers that hurt rail freight business? And rail freight business that hurt the steamboat/canal boat freight business? A better method always becomes the defacto business so if itās more cost effective for a company to use autonomous trucks, they will. Maybe rail freight will become more popular again and trucks used more for local movement. Rail is very cost effective for moving large amounts of freight (provided the companies maintain the infrastructure). We could be headed to a minimum guaranteed income provided by the govāt as more and more jobs become eliminated sort of like the $600 checks many got during the Covid fiasco. It would have to be funded by the corporations that are eliminating the real jobsā¦good luck with that.